This is the last pet portrait for 2025, a colorful painting of a mixed breed dog named Percy in bright rainbow colors. It was completed on December 26, 2025 and was painted with acrylics on an 8×10 inch canvas. It was painted entirely from a single photo. Percy is a golden-brown colored shepherd mix, and I decided to use primarily oranges for his base color, with red and purple and blue for shadows and yellow for highlights. he is wearing a cute bandana that is mostly white with some leaves on it, so I used the colors of those leaves that were already on the bandana and just enhanced the colors to be more saturated. The background is a simple gradient of blue, teal and green, which contrasts nicely with the bright orange and reds of the dog. I left his eyes the natural amber color.

Although the colors look very vibrant on this scan, the actual colors on the painting are much more intense and not as dark as they appear on the screen. Hot pinks, reds, and dark oranges do not translate very well to digital format, and so appear much darker than the real painting. My customers are always amazed when they get the real painting how much more colorful and intense it is in real life versus seeing it represented on the computer screen. The reason for this is the color gamut: there are fewer colors represented on the computer screen than your eye can see in real life. Purples and oranges especially are affected, and tend not to translate well into a digital format.

Percy’s portrait was painted in my ‘colorful realism’ style. In this style I use the pet’s own natural colors and markings as a reference for the colors I choose, picking bright, fully-saturated colors to represent their fur coloration. This is different than a fully psychedelic style, were bright rainbow colors are used without regard to the pet’s actual coloration and patterns. This is a style I have developed over the years as a pet portrait artist, and is my most popular style.

I take pet portraits on commission. I have painted many different breeds of dogs and cats, as well as exotic pets and farm animals like hamsters, lizards, birds, horses, and many others. I can bring your pet to life on canvas with a beautiful hand painted portrait using your own photos as references. Each painting is done entirely in traditional media using high quality archival materials. To find out more, please visit the Pet Portraits page above or send me an email.